Dust of Dreams

by Erikson, Steven

One more time she cocked her head. ‘Trell-blood, this is our land. We have heard clear his cry. You cannot? We are summoned, T’lan Imass, by the First Sword. A legend among the Brold that, it seems, was not a lie.’

  Ulag was rocked back as if struck a blow. ‘Onos T’oolan? But … why?’

  ‘He summons us beneath the banner of vengeance,’ she replied, ‘and in the name of death. My new friends, the T’lan Imass are going to war.’

  The birds launched into the air like a tent torn loose of its tethers, leaving upon the soft clays nothing but a scattering of tiny tracks.

  Bitterspring walked towards the other T’lan Imass. The emptiness of the land was a suffocating pressure. When everything goes, it is fitting that we are cursed to return, lifeless as the world we have made. Still … am I beyond betrayal? Have I ceased to be a slave to hope? Will I once again tread the old, worn trails?

  Life is done, but the lessons remain. Life is done, but the trap still holds me tight. This is the meaning of legacy. This is the meaning of justice.

  What was, is.

  The wind was insistent, tugging at worn strips of cloth, the shredded ends of leather straps, loose strands of hair. It moaned as if in search of a voice. But the lifeless thing that was Toc the Younger held its silence, its immutability in the midst of the life surrounding it.

  Setoc settled down on aching legs and waited. The two girls and the strange boy had huddled together nearby and were fast asleep.

  Their saviour had carried them leagues from the territory of the Senan Barghast, north and east across the undulating prairie. The horse under them had made none of the normal sounds a horse should make. None of the grunting breaths, the snorts. It had not once sawed at the bit or dipped its head seeking a mouthful of grass. Its tattered hide remained dry, not once twitching to the frustrated deerflies, even as its ropy muscles worked steadily and its hoofs drummed the hard ground. Now it stood motionless beneath its motionless rider.

  She rubbed at her face. They needed water. They needed food. She didn’t know where they were. Close to the Wastelands? Perhaps. She thought she could make out a range of hills or mountains far to the east, a dusty grimace of rock shimmering through the waves of heat. Lolling in the saddle behind Toc, she had been slipping into and out of strange dreams, fragmented visions of a squalid farmstead, the rank sweat of herds and small boys shouting. One boy with a face she thought she knew, but it was twisted with fear, and then hard with sudden resolve. A face that had transformed in an instant to one that awaited death. In one so young, nothing was more horrifying. Dreaming of children, but not these children here, not even Barghast children. At times, she found herself wheeling high above this lone warrior who rode with a girl in front, a girl behind, a girl and a boy in the crooks of his arms. She could smell scorched feathers, and all at once the land far below was a sea of diamonds, cut in two by a thin, wavering line.

  She was fevered, or so she concluded now as she sat, mouth dry, eyes stinging with grit. Was this meant to be a rest? Something in her was resisting sleep. They needed water. They needed to eat.

  A mound a short distance away caught her eye. Groaning, she stood, dragged herself closer.

  A cairn, almost lost in the knee-high grasses. A wedge-shaped stone set atop a thinner slab, and beneath that a mound of angled rocks. The wedge was carved on its sides. Etching the eyes of a wolf. Mouth open with the slab forming the lower jaw, the scratchings of fangs and teeth. Worn down by centuries of wind and rain. She reached out a trembling hand, set her palm against the rough, warm stone.

  ‘We are being hunted.’

  The rasping pronouncement drew her round. She saw Toc stringing his bow, heard the wind hum against the taut gut. A new voice in the air. She joined him, gazed westward. A dozen or more riders. ‘Akrynnai,’ she said. ‘They will see our Barghast clothing. They will seek to kill us. Then again,’ she added, ‘if you ride to them, they may change their minds.’

  ‘And why would that be?’ he asked, even as he kicked his horse forward.

  She saw the Akrynnai horsewarriors fan out, saw lances being readied.

  Toc rode straight for them, an arrow nocked to the bowstring.

  As they drew closer, Setoc saw the Akrynnai falter, even as their lances lifted defensively. Moments later the warriors scattered, horses bucking beneath them. Within a few more heartbeats, all were in flight. Toc slowly wheeled his mount and rode back to where she stood.

  ‘It seems you were right.’

  ‘Their horses knew before they did.’

  He halted his mount, returned the arrow to its quiver and deftly unstrung the bow.

  ‘Actually, you’ll need those,’ Setoc said. ‘We need food. We need water, too.’

  It seemed he’d stopped listening, and his head was turned to the east.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘More hunters?’

  ‘She wasn’t satisfied,’ he muttered. ‘Of course not. What can one do better than an army can? Not much. But he won’t like it. He never did. In fact, he may turn them all away. Well now, Bonecaster, what would you do about that? If he releases them?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. She? Him? What army?’

  His head turned to look past her. She swung round. The boy was on his feet, walking over to the wolf cairn. He sang, ‘Blalalalalalala …’

  ‘I wish he’d stop doing that,’ she said.

  ‘You are not alone in that, Setoc of the Wolves.’

  She started, turned back to eye the undead warrior. ‘I see you now, Toc Anaster, and it seems you have but one eye—dead as it is. But that first night, I saw—’

  ‘What? What did you see?’

  The eye of a wolf. She waved towards the cairn. ‘You brought us here.’

  ‘No. I took you away. Tell me, Setoc, are the beasts innocent?’

  ‘Innocent? Of what?’

  ‘Did they deserve their fate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did it matter? Whether they deserved it or not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Setoc, what do the Wolves want?’

  She knew by his intonation that he meant the god and the goddess—she knew they existed, even if she didn’t know their names, or if they even had ones. ‘They want us all to go away. To leave them alone. Them and their children.’

  ‘Will we?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She struggled for an answer.

  ‘Because, Setoc, to live is to wage war. And it just happens that no other thing is as good at waging war as we are.’

  ‘I don’t believe you! Wolves don’t wage war against anything!’

  ‘A pack marks out its territory and that pack will drive off any other pack that seeks to encroach upon it. The pack defends its claim—to the land, and to the animals it preys upon in that land.’

  ‘But that’s not war!’

  He shrugged. ‘Mostly, it’s just the threat of war, until threat alone proves insufficient. Every creature strives for dominance, among its own kind and within its territory. Even a pack of dogs will find its king, its queen, and they will rule by virtue of their strength and the threat their strength implies, until they are usurped by the next in line. What can we make of this? That politics belong to all social creatures? So it would seem. Setoc, could the Wolves kill us humans, every one of us, would they?’

  ‘If they understood it was them or us, yes! Why shouldn’t they?’

  ‘I was but asking questions,’ Toc replied. ‘I once knew a woman who could flatten a city with the arch of a single perfect eyebrow.’

  ‘Did she?’ Setoc asked, pleased to be the one asking questions.

  ‘Occasionally. But, not every city, not every time.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The undead warrior smiled, the expression chilling her. ‘She liked a decent bath every now and then.’

  After Toc had set off in search of food, Setoc set about building a hearth with whatever stones she could find. The boy was sit
ting in front of the cairn, still singing his song. The twins had awakened but neither seemed to have anything to say. Their eyes were glazed and Setoc knew it for shock.

  ‘Toc’ll be back soon,’ she told them. ‘Listen, can you make him stop that babbling? Please? It’s making my skin crawl. I mean, has he lost his mind, the little one? Or are they all like that? Barghast children aren’t, at least not that I remember. They stay quiet, just like you two are doing right now.’

  Neither girl replied. They simply watched her.

  The boy suddenly shouted.

  At the cry the ground erupted twenty paces beyond the cairn. Stones spat through a cloud of dust.

  And something clambered forth.

  The twins shrieked. But the boy was laughing. Setoc stared. A huge wolf, long-limbed, with a long, flat head and heavy jaws bristling with fangs, stepped out from the dust, and then paused to shake its matted, tangled coat. The gesture cut away the last threads of fear in Setoc.

  From the boy, a new song. ‘Ay ay ay ayayayayayayay!’

  At its hunched shoulders, the creature was taller than Setoc. And it had died long, long ago.

  Her eyes snapped to the boy. He summoned it. With that nonsense song, he summoned it.

  Can—can I do the same? What is the boy to me? What is being made here?

  One of the twins spoke: ‘He needs Toc. At his side. At our brother’s side. He needs Tool’s only friend. They have to be together.’

  And the other girl, her gaze levelled on Setoc, said, ‘And they need you. But we have nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ Setoc said, irritated by the stab of irrational guilt she’d felt at the girl’s words.

  ‘What will happen,’ the girl asked, ‘when you raise one of your perfect eyebrows?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘ “Wherever you walk, someone’s stepped before you.” Our father used to say that.’

  The enormous wolf stood close to the boy. Dust still streamed down its flanks. She had a sudden vision of this beast tearing out the throat of a horse. I saw these ones, but as ghosts. Ghosts of living things, not all rotted skin and bones. They kept their distance. They were never sure of me. Yet … I wept for them.

  I can’t level cities.

  Can I?

  The apparitions rose suddenly, forming a circle around Toc. He slowly straightened from gutting the antelope he’d killed with an arrow to the heart. ‘If only Hood’s realm was smaller,’ he said, ‘I might know you all. But it isn’t and I don’t. What do you want?’

  One of the undead Jaghut answered: ‘Nothing.’

  The thirteen others laughed.

  ‘Nothing from you,’ the speaker amended. She had been female, once—when such distinctions meant something.

  ‘Then why have you surrounded me?’ Toc asked. ‘It can’t be that you’re hungry—’

  More laughter, and weapons rattled back into sheaths and belt-loops. The woman approached. ‘A fine shot with that arrow, Herald. All the more remarkable for the lone eye you have left.’

  Toc glared at the others. ‘Will you stop laughing, for Hood’s sake!’

  The guffaws redoubled.

  ‘The wrong invocation, Herald,’ said the woman. ‘I am named Varandas. We do not serve Hood. We did Iskar Jarak a favour, and now we are free to do as we please.’

  ‘And what pleases you?’

  Laughter from all sides.

  Toc crouched back down, resumed gutting the antelope. Flies spun and buzzed. In the corner of his vision he could see one of the animal’s eyes, still liquid, still full, staring out at nothing. Iskar Jarak, when will you summon me? Soon, I think. It all draws in—but none of that belongs to the Wolves. Their interests lie elsewhere. What will happen? Will I simply tear in half? He paused, looked up to see the Jaghut still encircling him. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Wandering,’ Varandas replied.

  Another added in a deep voice, ‘Looking for something to kill.’

  Toc glanced again at the antelope’s sightless eye. ‘You picked the wrong continent. The T’lan Imass have awakened.’

  All at once, the amusement surrounding him seemed to vanish, and a sudden chill gripped the air.

  Toc set down his knife and dragged loose the antelope’s guts.

  ‘We never faced them,’ said Varandas. ‘We were dead long before their ritual of eternal un-life.’

  A different Jaghut spoke. ‘K’Chain Nah’ruk, and now T’lan Imass. Doesn’t anyone ever go away?’

  After a moment, all began laughing again.

  Through the merriment Varandas stepped close to Toc and said, ‘Why have you killed this thing? You cannot eat it. And since that is true, I conclude that you must therefore hunt for others. Where are they?’

  ‘Not far,’ he replied, ‘and none are any threat to you.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  ‘Nah’ruk—were they Iskar Jarak’s favour?’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘What were they after?’

  ‘Not “what”. Who. But ask nothing more of that—we have discussed the matter and can make no sense of it. The world has lost its simplicity.’

  ‘The world was never simple, Jaghut, and if you believe it was, you’re deluding yourself.’

  ‘What would you know of the ancient times?’

  He shrugged. ‘I only know recent times, but why should the ancient ones be any different? Our memories lie. We call it nostalgia and smile. But every lie has a purpose. And that includes falsifying our sense of the past—’

  ‘And what purpose would that serve, Herald?’

  He wiped clean his knife in the grasses. ‘You shouldn’t need to ask.’

  ‘But I do ask.’

  ‘We lie about our past to make peace with the present. If we accepted the truth of our history, we would find no peace—our consciences would not permit it. Nor would our rage.’

  Varandas was clearly amused. ‘Are you consumed with anger, Herald? Do you see too clearly with that lonely eye? Strong emotions are ever a barrier to perception, and this must be true of you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You failed to detect my mocking tone when I spoke of the world’s loss of simplicity.’

  ‘I must have lost its distinction in the midst of the irony suffusing everything else you said. How stupid of me. Now, I am done with this beast.’ He sheathed his knife and lifted the carcass to settle it across his shoulders. ‘I could wish you all luck in finding something to kill,’ he said, ‘but you don’t need it.’

  ‘Do you think the T’lan Imass will be eager to challenge us, Herald?’

  He levered the antelope on to the rump of his horse. The eyes, he saw, now swarmed with flies. Toc set a boot in the stirrup and, lifting wide with his leg to clear the carcass, lowered himself into the saddle. He gathered the reins. ‘I knew a T’lan Imass once,’ he said. ‘I taught him how to make jokes.’

  ‘He needed teaching?’

  ‘More like reminding, I think. Being unalive for as long as he was will do that to the best of us, I suspect. In any case, I’m sure the T’lan Imass will find you very comforting, in all that dark armour and whatnot, even as they chop you to pieces. Unfortunately, and at the risk of deflating your bloated egos, they’re not here for you.’

  ‘Neither were the Nah’ruk. But,’ and Varandas cocked her helmed head, ‘what do you mean they will find us “comforting”?’

  Toc studied her, and then scanned the others. Lifeless faces, so eager to laugh. Damned Jaghut. He shrugged, and then said, ‘Nostalgia.’

  After the Herald and the lifeless antelope had ridden away on the lifeless horse, Varandas turned to her companions. ‘What think you, Haut?’

  The thick-limbed warrior with the heavy voice shifted, armour clanking and shedding red dust, and then said, ‘I think, Captain, we need to make ourselves scarce.’

  Suvalas snorted. ‘The Imass were pitiful—I doubt even un-living ones could cause us much trouble. Captain, let us fi
nd some of them and destroy them. I’d forgotten how much fun killing is.’

  Varandas turned to one of her lieutenants. ‘Burrugast?’

  ‘A thought has occurred to me, Captain.’

  She smiled. ‘Go on.’

  ‘If the T’lan Imass who waged war against the Jaghut were as pitiful as Suvalas suggests, why are there no Jaghut left?’

  No one arrived at an answer. Moments passed.

  ‘We need to make ourselves scarce,’ Haut repeated. And then he laughed.

  The others joined in. Even Suvalas.

  Captain Varandas nodded. So many things were a delight, weren’t they? All these awkward emotions, such as humility, confusion and unease. To feel them again, to laugh at their inherent absurdity, mocking every survival instinct—as if she and her companions still lived. As if they still had something to lose. As if the past was worth recreating here in the present. ‘As if,’ she added mostly to herself, ‘old grudges were worth holding on to.’ She grunted, and then said, ‘We shall march east.’

  ‘Why east?’ Gedoran demanded.

  ‘Because I feel like it, lieutenant. Into the birth of the sun, the shadows on our trail, a new day ever ahead.’ She tilted back her head. ‘Hah hah hah hah hah!’

  Toc the Younger saw the gaunt ay from some distance away. Standing with the boy clinging to one foreleg. If Toc had possessed a living heart, it would have beaten faster. If he could draw breath, it would have quickened. If his eye were swimming in a pool of tears, as living eyes did, he would weep.

  Of course, it was not Baaljagg. The giant wolf was not—he realized as he rode closer—even alive. It had been summoned. Not from Hood’s Realm, for the souls of such beasts did not reside there. The Beast Hold, gift of the Wolves. An ay, to walk the mortal world once again, to guard the boy. And their chosen daughter.

  Setoc, was this by your hand?

  One-eyed he might be, but he was not blind to the patterns taking shape. Nor, in the dry dust of his mind, was he insensitive to the twisted nuances within those patterns, as if the distant forces of fate took ghastly pleasure in mocking all that he treasured—the memories he held on to as would a drowning man hold on to the last breath in his lungs.

  I see you in his face, Tool. As if I could travel back to the times before the Ritual of Tellann, as if I could whisper in like a ghost to that small camp where you were born, and see you at but a few years of age, bundled against the cold, your breath pluming and your cheeks bright red—I had not thought such a journey possible.